Lady Gaga marked the launch of her debut perfume Fame by making herself the centerpiece of a surreal black-tie masquerade soiree and getting a tattoo on the back of her head.
Gaga, 26, took over the Guggenheim museum on the final day of New York fashion week for a piece of performance art — or should that be publicity? — that started off with her sleeping in a Plexiglas replica of a Fame bottle. Hundreds of guests — including Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Yoko Ono and a host of big-name New York fashion designers and models — had been asked to turn up Thursday night with full-on head accessories, or at least a party mask. “In the spirit of Gaga’s nostalgic aesthetic, we inspire you to honor her dedication to this fragrance and celebrate your shared passion for fashion,” the invitation card said. Upon arrival, invitees were greeted by muscular young bare-chested male models in skin-tight leather jeans, as well as black-tinted hors d’oeuvres and fuming blood-red margaritas — all hints of things to come.
Onto a giant screen affixed to the Guggenheim’s famous spiral gallery appeared New York photographer Steven Klein’s five-minute film to promote Fame, which is billed as the world’s first eau de parfum that is black in color. Most definitely NSFW — Twitterese for not safe for viewing at work — it cast the chart-topping singer-songwriter as a latex-clad Gulliver in a “Metropolis” bondage nightmare, her naked body overrun by, well, muscular male models. “You know, the film was expensive,” Klein told the Hollywood Reporter amid talk that it cost more than $1 million to make, “but I guess the film has a price, fame has a price, the fragrance has a price. Everything has a price.” Finally, Gaga herself appeared, inside the darkened bottle replica, seemingly asleep on a velvet day bed, wrapped in a black fur stole, as Edith Piaf ballads filled the vastness of the Guggenheim’s atrium. It took a few minutes before the adult guests — no children or teenagers, despite the demographics of Gaga’s fan base — realized they could step up, stick their hand through a hole and actually touch a real-life celebrity.
